Fear Cuts Deeper Than Swords
by MagicalMysticalType
Summary: Arya and the Hound face a different circumstance at the Crossroads.


Arya

The Inn was a warm, musty embrace-much better than the cold wet of the night's continuing rain . . . on and on it had been coming, at least for two days. The lamp light and candles cast an attractive glow on the dining hall surrounding Arya. _I hate this inn_. But at the current moment, it felt good, as if the memories here had faded to a distant illusion.

"Over there," a low, but not without bite voice to her right ordered; its' owner gesturing a leathered and mailed arm toward the back right corner. He loomed over her; Arya never forgot how tall The Hound was. She went as directed immediately. _Best not to try his patience_. As they made their way across the trestle table filled room to the dim corner she glanced at the other patrons, a calm crowd and no one was worth noting for worse or otherwise. The Hound motioned to a chair, "Sit." Arya sat.

A plump innkeeper, the woman's name, she remembered was Masha, made her way across the room to them, "What would you be needin'?"

"Mead, two pints and some bread." Even in the dim light The Hound's face was enough to stir uneasiness in Masha's eyes, but it was surely the name to face that had caused it.

"As you want." It was warmly said and she was back quickly. The meal was the most Arya had eaten in a long time. _I won't thank you for it though_. Arya let contempt wash into her eyes. She hated The Hound too. His burned face currently matted with wet, brushed-over hair, his anger was even worse than hers. The Hound drank the whole of his mead and glowered out at the room.

"Where are we going from here?" She meant it to have a slightly demanding tone. "There's no one else who will pay _you_ for me anymore. "It was true, the last of her House had been killed at the Twins, there was no one else left to pay any kind of ransom The Hound had intended. _Maybe to the Wall, she entertained the idea. Or to the Eyrie, maybe her Aunt Lysa would keep her in secret. Hopefully the Wall._ She thought about Jon and she thought about Sansa and her little brothers, the last of her pack.

The Hound's reply was a defiant stare then, "I'm thinking on it." The door opened and Arya's eyes moved to watch as three men heavily cloaked entered, dried, and seated themselves, she held her gaze. She knew them two of them. _And so does The Hound_. Polliver and the Ticker would know him as soon as looking at him . . . she didn't know if they would remember her. Her stomach dropped and she felt her muscle almost freeze. . . She managed a breath and remembered: _Fear cuts deeper than swords_.

"Your brother's men," she breathed.

"_Ser_ _Gregor's_ men. Once they see me, we aren't like to be allowed to walk, my brothers men aren't the type to forget who they serve." He hadn't moved an inch since they had walked in and looked tense compared to his usual glum drunkeness, Arya gripped her knife tucked under her belt and scratched at the gouges in the table beneath her.

"_Ser Gregor, Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei. Valar morghulis." _Arya said her prayer every night. "They deserve to die," she said, "without mercy." And she had waited and now was her chance. She was not scared.

"It could not be! The dead King's Dog!" The Tickler stood mockingly and raised his glass, "To Tommen!" The room stood silent and the numerous patrons in the hall moments before gone, the only sound being the soft crackles of the hearth fire. The light caught the Tickler's eye as he drained his glass and watched the Hound's silent and hollow hatred grow.

"We both know he was no King." The Hound stated in a menacing, even voice. "Where is your master Gregor? Is _Ser_ Gregor so honorable that he would no longer dream to spill his brother's blood? Instead he sends his _rats_." The Tickler and Polliver seemed slightly amused. The other among them was a young squire with an equally wicked grin. Nobody seeming to notice her, Arya watched as she saw the familiar sinister smile spread across the Tickler's face. His mocking stance in an instance changed to the motion of throwing a knife, missing the Hound by mere inches. Reeling away from the knife, the Hound began to savagely hack away at the morbid interrogator and Polliver quickly joined in.

"Over here, girl!" the unfamiliar squire jeered at her, catching her attention, a cup flew past her head and he made to lunge for her. _Swift as a deer_. Drawing her dagger from her belt behind her back, she ducked aside and met his head with a pitcher she grabbed from the table next to her. _There, you stupid, stupid boy_.

"This Dog barely bites back! No more fight in you? Did all that flame _burn _it away?" hissed The Tickler as he dodged the heavy blows the Hound aimed at him, with Polliver circling around them in some sick dance. The sound of the fighting made everything blur in a noisy din._ I must distract them!_ _I must―_Arya's head hit a wooden bench as the squire she had hit over the head dragged her down and towards him, her fingers scraping against the stone of the floor.

"GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME!" Arya screamed in anger, she clenched the smooth dagger in her hands and _stabbed_. The boy fell, clutching his gut, vainly trying the stop the bleeding of the mortal wound. She got up, noticing Polliver's advancements on the Hound. _Polliver_. She could see Needle, fastened in his sword belt. _I want that back._ Filled with rage Arya grabbed the dagger and slinked after her target, leaping from a table onto his back and brought it down into his flesh. Polliver fell, she brought it down again, and again and again. She ripped Needle off his belt. _For Harrenhal, for all your crimes!_ All her rage, all the _red_; "Die, die, die, die, die!" Arya screamed and brought the dagger down again . . .

"That's enough," the Hound dragged her off of Polliver. The haze of anger began to clear, the animalistic savagery gone. The Hound sat her on a table and took her dagger . . . The Tickler and Polliver and the squire all lay dead with their life's blood pooled red amongst the rushes and hay laid across the floor.

"Do you think that's all of them? None of them are waiting outside?" she asked, feeling oddly numb. The Hound picked the visible weapons off the dead monsters and searched for coin in their pocket and let out an odd laugh. He shook his head.

"All of them? No, not all of them. . . We must go now, there will be too many to handle if―" The scream of a stallion pierced the night outside, and the sound of riders interrupted the odd silence of death. Collecting themselves quickly they made to hurry back through the kitchen and stables, Arya following The Hound on deft, careful feet. _Quiet as a shadow! _When they reached the darkened mouth of the barn, they paused, concealed in the gloom. Their two horses; The Hound's black warhorse and Arya's smaller mount were tied to a sheltered hitching post a maybe 50 feet from the main stable. They could see no one.

"We must ride East, as fast as possible and as long as we can. Go!" his voice a panting rasp. _To the Vale it is._ Still hovering in his shadow, Arya glanced nervously around the inky black night. It was still pouring, deep mud engulfed and pulled at her boots. Arya dragged herself to the top of her horse and took off after The Hound, hurrying down the dark road with as much speed as was possible to risk.

With the light of the Inn fading quickly, shadow and night engulfed the riders. The horses had startled for some reason-but there could have been an army around them and they would never have been the wise. The downpour drowned the sounds of the night, and of anything lurking in wait. _What if it is some trap?_ Pin pricks covered her skin and the cold rain only worsened them, chilling her to the bone. _Fear cuts deeper than swords._ She did not dare speak, instead focusing on not losing her way as Clegane's huge black figure moved ahead of her, just barely visible.

A sound began to break through the watery barrier, rhythmic and dreadful. She could hear it. _Another rider. _The greedy, deep mud betrayed whatever was following them. Arya jerked her horse ahead, moving to gain distance away from their phantom pursuer. The Hound pulled his horse to a stop, and slowly drew his sword, the steel hiss making her horse shy away. "There is someone out there," Arya breathed, her voice a whispered tremble. "Be still," The Hound turned to face the sound. She could not see his face, only his immense form. The rain fell, the tension froze time, and darkness overwhelmed.

From their right, a monstrous dark, shadow exploded. The mounted assailant charged his horse straight for The Hound, colliding with such force that both riders flew from their seats and landed in a cacophony of twisted metal and the scream of man and beast. Arya felt the jarring impact of soaked earth as she too was flung by her panicked horse. The other two figures rose from the collision not far off, one being the tallest man she had ever seen, taller than The Hound. _The Mountain That Rides. Ser Gregor Clegane. _

"You should have come with my men, you should have _listened,_" the Brute warned in a menacing, booming voice. "My own brother, too _cowardly_ to fight last I heard. To find him running away . . . From what? A bit of flame? There's a price on your capture you know, my Queen decreed it herself. Don't matter if you're dead and rotting, the bitch will believe it either way. I will kill you and they will thank me!" The Hound stood silently, braced behind his shield. "Fuck the Queen, fuck the King!" Sandor spat, a small amount of light glinting off his dog's head helm. "Fight, coward!" Gregor commanded, his brother still unmoving. Gregor let out a tremendous bellow, and swung a sword longer than Arya was tall down over The Hound with a dreadful force; splinters of wood flew from his shield.

"You are _weak_." Another slash flung even more of the dog-emblazoned shield through the dark. Another. And Another. The Hound finally sprang into action with such ferocity Arya had a hard time deciphering who was who. Around and around they slashed and parried, though Gregor was so enormous that agility and speed was all his brother could use to avoid being cleaved in two.

The biting sound of steel on steel, steel on flesh, grunts of pain and heavy breath was all that filled Arya's ear. The Hound was tiring and after falling from his horse, he had not been in the best of condition to start with. Gregor's immensity kept him ahead, chopped and hacking like an inhumane monster. He would not tire. _Come on, come on, kill him! Kill him!_ Arya had not forgotten his men, she had not forgotten his cruelty, and if Sandor did fall she would be his captive once again, and even The Hound was better than The Mountain.

_I must do something_. Arya felt around her belt, finding her knife again and crept through the night toward the two foes. The Hound gasped, and staggered slightly, Gregor's sword seeming to land a cut across his thigh, but he did not fall. _I'm the ghost in Harrenhal. _Arya mustered all her strength, and sly as a cat plunged her dagger between the grieves on Gregor's calf, heated, stinking blood gushed over her hand. _I'm the ghost in Harrenhal._

It was all The Hound needed, as Gregor bellowed a heinous scream; he brought his wicked sword down across his brother's thick neck. A ghastly red river blossomed there, and Ser Gregor, The Mountain That Rides, fell into a terrible heap, spattering blood from his mouth as he choked.

The Hound, disheveled and bleeding managed to wrestle his gruesome helm off, though Arya could still not see his face. He watched as his brother struggled to even draw breath, it was probably the first time Sandor and stood over his brother, Arya could guess. "I am no Ser," were his only words.

Arya stared, strangely curious of the fallen Mountain. She smelled reeking blood everywhere. Soaking into the ground, gliding off The Hound's sword, dripping off her dagger. . . She could even taste the iron strength of it from her bitten lip. The Wolf and the Dog stared into the night, panting and huffing cold breath. She cast one final gaze down at their kill, "_Valar morghulis_," she prayed.


End file.
